The Vow
by oldmule
Summary: It only takes a moment to realise.
1. Chapter 1

**Short, like me. But more to come.**

 **For jo-tst2, because she asked.**

* * *

" _Do you take this woman…?"_

He resisted the all consuming urge he felt to look at her; pinned his eyes to a point on the alter cloth where the merest hint of a golden thread threatened to unpick itself from the silk that encased it. His heart felt full and gorged and swollen and heavy in his chest.

"… _To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?'_

He would. He most certainly would.

" _Do you take this man…?"_

She stood and her lungs felt empty. Her eyes which had been alert and bright and searching now searched for him, slid to him, obediently, involuntarily, needily.

"… _To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"_

She would. She knew she would.

And that was how it was.

Or could have been.

And for both they knew it… and that the moment was lost.


	2. Chapter 2

"The threat is substantial."

"Al Quaida, factions within the country and across the region."

"Not to mention a whole swathe of Islam and Christianity in uproar,"

Lucas leant back in his chair.

"As weddings go," he added, "It's not exactly awash with well wishers!"

They all looked at the image projected on the wall behind them. An attractive, olive skinned man and a pretty, apple skinned girl; smiling, happy and seemingly oblivious to the mayhem they had instigated with their announcement.

Not just a wedding, but a royal wedding: not just a royal wedding but a conversion of faith.

"Special forces will be there," instructed Harry, "and the cathedral will be swept and closed off for the week preceding, with Crown Prince Hamed under maximum security protection from the moment he lands at Heathrow on Tuesday. Lucas will be part of that unit."

"Tariq…" Lucas instructed, "Be across all coms, anything that's relevant to Hamed or the date, coming in and out of the country." Tariq nodded.

"Beth, you're promoted…" Harry announced.

"So soon?" she smiled, as he passed her a file.

"…Lady in waiting to the Duchess. Keep her close, get her confidence, report back anything unusual and any recent and new contacts."

"Harry, will be in the Cathedral on the day as a member of the foreign office guest detail," Lucas continued, "And Ruth you'll be there as one of the bride's guests."

Ruth nodded, "In the meantime I'll monitor Hamed's home security detail" she added, "And any links to the groups who have made, or may make threats against him."

"Easier said than done," smirked Lucas, "Let's hope it's not going to be every week that a Jordanian royal decides to convert."

"They're in love," said Beth, gazing at a series of photos within the file.

Something akin to a quiet laugh sounded from Harry: something akin, but not hearty, nor warm, nor happy.

Beth and the others glanced up at him.

"Right, shall we?" Lucas stood purposefully. The rest rose with him, leaving Harry alone in the meeting room.

Ruth had not looked at him, nor did she as she walked away.

She was in another place: a moment in time when all she could remember was the intensity of his eyes; the warmth of his hand in the hollow of her back: the touch of his breath across her cheek; and the velvet sound of his whispered words.

"Marry me, Ruth?"

The question echoed back.

"Marry me?"

Of course she had answered him. And though it had not been an acceptance, he had at least appeared to accept that answer.

But question and answer still hung between them now.

He had not forgotten it and he had not accepted it.

She wished he would. She wished they could be where they had been… confidants; colleagues with a complicated history, but with a closeness most would never have.

It could and would be no more than that. Not after all that had come between them.

Harry remained in his seat. He knew his behaviour in recent weeks had been churlish. He scoffed at his claim to 'move on from this', scoffed at his inability to do just that; to think it would be so very easy.

He would do anything for her. For her he would willingly sacrifice himself, his life, his job, his reputation.

But he could not forgive her.

Could not forgive her for saying 'no'.


	3. Chapter 3

For a big operation they had managed to successfully steer their way around each other for several days. But now the Prince had arrived in London, Lucas was embedded with his entourage, as was Beth with the Duchess.

The Grid was a hub of activity and yet with core staff in the field Harry and Ruth could not avoid each other for much longer.

The door opened before the cursory knock.

"Harry, I've found something," she thrust towards him a surveillance photo.

"Mo Fethani. He has links to several of the factions in the middle east and it seems he entered the country three days before Hamed. Special branch spotted him in Ealing last night."

"Who's he with?" he held up the photo.

"His girlfriend, Ella Shiring.'

He raised an eyebrow and Ruth took the picture.

"She's white," he said.

"I think we need to watch him."

"He may simply be in London for her, not Hamed. He clearly doesn't have a problem with mixed relationships."

"Or he may be planning an attack on the Cathedral?"

She stared at him challengingly, "It's not about romance, Harry."

"But isn't that what started all of this…situation?"

His eyes were unblinking in the challenge. She matched his gaze.

"Fethani's girlfriend converted to Islam two months ago."

Harry looked away, "Fine. Add him to Tariq's list and get surveillance."

She turned and left.

She wanted to shake him. to shout at him, to shun him. Instead she found herself two hours later on the roof with him.

"You said we would move on from this," she stated simply.

He gazed out over the horizon.

"It was easier to say than to practice," he answered eventually.

She leant beside him, maintaining a discreet distance. Neither spoke for a considerable while.

"Would you try?" she asked quietly.

"'No' was hard to hear, Ruth," he whispered, still not looking at her, "but you know what was worse? Been told that it could have been a thousand times 'yes'."

He turned to her, his hand briefly touching his chest, "Any more salt you want to rub in?"

"I'm sorry, Harry. Truly I am."

"But you're still of the same opinion?"

She nodded slowly but with certainty.

He looked back to the skyline with a resigned smile, "then we do indeed move on, Ruth."

He felt the gentlest of touches on his arm.

"I miss what we had Harry. And I hate how we've been."

The touch left him, the contact was gone.

She turned away across the roof to the door.

"I'm not sure I know what we had, Ruth," she heard from behind her.

He rose from his leaning position to stand and face her. "But I'll try. I promise you, I'll try … given all my limitations."

"Which I know more than anyone?" she smiled softly.

"Which you know more than anyone."

And with a last lingering look they broke apart.


	4. Chapter 4

**Rather a dull bit of plot. But I have an idea where we're going now and plot will imminently be a thing of the past!**

* * *

The wedding was one day away. Section D were in place. Three likely attacks had been strangled at source and two more suspect groups were been carefully monitored. Mo Fethani was still been surveilled but it was looking less and less likely that he had any involvement.

And Harry and Ruth?

Harry was good to his word. She knew he would be.

He had held out some hope, since that day in the churchyard: had expected that Ruth, being Ruth, would go away and unpick the moment; analyse his question, her feelings and most of all her answer.

He hoped above all things, that having done that, she would change her mind and give him room to believe again.

But time had passed, and now, on the rooftop she had reiterated what she wanted. It had not changed.

And so he lay aside his hope and tried, as he had promised her he would, to bury it deep. His hope lay covered, buried in the sand.

But not his feelings.

They would never change.

There was not enough sand in all the deserts of the world to bury all that he felt for her.

* * *

And so at work they pressed on, successfully. Close confidants and colleagues, who, regardless of being one in love with the other, existed upon and around the grid, in a world of their making, outside of which nothing more was permitted to exist.

"Ruth..."

She followed him across the room.

"I need to meet the Home Secretary. Will you go over to the cathedral, supervise the security checks and drop this off with Beth."

It wasn't a question. She was the one he trusted.

"Of course," she smiled, warmly.

He strode for the door, calling over his shoulder, "Anything more on Fethani?"

"Nothing. Seems I was wrong on that one."

"I'd rather have your occasional wrong, than anyone else's attempt at right."

And for a moment more than was quite necessary they held each other's gaze before the door closed.

* * *

"How is it?"

"Good," answered Ruth, "everything Harry requested is in place."

Beth nodded and held out her hand for the file that Ruth had brought with her.

"And the Duchess?"

"All fine, everyone checks out. The rehearsal's been put back half an hour."

"I heard."

"Is Harry coming?"

"He's tied up, but I'll stay."

Ruth stood at the side of the West aisle, watching: her eyes alert and eager, taking in the ceremony and its details; making herself aware of all around her in preparation for the following day.

She nodded to Lucas, who was at the Eastern side.

The bride to be, casually dressed in jeans, walked down the aisle and approached the equally casual looking Crown Prince. Ruth watched him turn and look at her, a broad smile swallowing his face, his eyes shining with expectation.

And this man that Ruth had never met, but seen only in photographs and on video, seemed suddenly so familiar that it stung something within her.

She searched her mind for the links that would give her the clue, but frustratingly could not quite place it. She glanced away from him, trying to distract herself and give her memory the chance to laterally sift the possibilities of where she had seen him before and as she did so, she gazed upon the choir who had just begun to take their seats.

But Ruth's mind was telling her something else now, calling it loud, recognising something that this time she could put her finger on and identify.

A pale and pretty face rising above the cassock she and those around her were wearing.

A face she knew.

Beth saw Ruth turn. She was by her side in an instant.

"The girl in the choir, bottom row, third from the left?"

Beth sought her out, "She joined them about two months ago, but she's clear."

Ruth's mind was racing and Beth knew it.

"What is it, Ruth?'

"Strange that she joined a cathedral choir about the same time she converted to Islam?"

"Who is she?"

"Ella Shiring. We've been monitoring her boyfriend Mo Fethani."

""He has links to Jordan?"

"Mmm," murmured Ruth, "But he's clean."

She turned her eyes to Beth, "It's not him. It's her."

Beth moved slowly and with a single glance that caught Lucas's eye, they crossed towards the choir stalls.

Ella Shiring broke ranks. Pushing past the rest, she fled towards the wooden door to the right of the altar. Lucas and Beth in pursuit.

Ruth, calling for back up, hurried the future bride and groom out of the cathedral to lock it down until the situation was secure. The Prince's bodyguards swept him out, Ruth accompanying the Duchess.

"What is it?" the young woman asked firmly.

"It's fine, just a precaution."

The Duchess raised her eyebrows, it seemed she was not one to be easily placated.

"Someone we believe shouldn't have been here."

They climbed into the car that was waiting at the Western entrance and drove quickly away.

Ruth's phone rang. It was Lucas.

"We have her. And we've found a weapon. I'll let Harry know. Check her links and see if there's anything else we need to worry about, or if she was acting alone?"

Ruth closed down the call.

The bride to be was looking at her intently.

"Will it be fine for tomorrow?'

"I don't know," said Ruth, honestly.

She asked nothing further but gazed out of the window, her fingers worrying at the diamond ring on her left hand, until they arrived at the secure house in which she had stayed in the week leading up to the wedding.

"You know you may never be free of all this," Ruth said, as they walked to the door, flanked by her security.

"You think there's an option?'

Ruth made no answer.

"Then you've clearly never loved someone enough."

The door to the house slammed closed.


	5. Chapter 5

_"Do you take this woman…?"_

He resisted the all consuming urge he felt to look at her, pinned his eyes to a point on the alter cloth where the merest hint of a golden thread threatened to unpick itself.

His heart felt full and gorged and swollen and heavy in his chest.

 _"…To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?'_

He threw the sand. Tried to bury it.

But he knew, he would.

He always would.

 _"Do you take this man…?"_

She stood and her lungs felt empty. Her eyes which had been alert and bright and searching now searched for him, slid to him, obediently, involuntarily, needily.

 _"…To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"_

She would.

She suddenly knew she would.

Ruth had watched Prince Hamed turn to his bride, as she settled beside him before the altar.

She had witnessed the same look yesterday and had felt deeply unsettled: unsettled by the familiarity of it; of him.

But now, here under this glorious dome, she finally realised… she finally recognised.

It was not his face that she knew, nor his dark, slightly hooded brown eyes.

It was the look itself: the simplicity of the look; the emotion of the look; the sheer intensity of the selfless, giving, adoring love within that look.

It was the look Harry gave her every day of her life.

And in that one instant everything changed.


	6. Chapter 6

It was Wednesday morning. Four days after the wedding. The security operation had been exemplary, the ceremony seamless. Who knew what would happen to the newly wed couple from this point forth, but for now it was no longer the responsibility of Section D.

Harry strode across the grid towards Ruth, who appeared to be in the middle of spring cleaning her desk.

"Ruth, can you –"

"Sorry Harry, but I'm on leave."

"What?" he stood looking at her blankly. There had been no application, more to the point she rarely ever took it anyway.

"I'm on leave from today. It was agreed with the DG."

"The DG!" this was getting stranger, "Why didn't you come to me?"

"It's complicated."

Wasn't everything with Ruth.

"For how long?"

"Six and a half weeks."

"Six and a half weeks!"

She glanced up at him, stuffing a cactus, that he wasn't sure was even alive, into a carrier bag that also seemed to hold a mixture of pens, pencils, a packet of biscuits and what smelt like a half eaten egg sandwich.

"You look like you're clearing out for good," he muttered unhappily.

"No, Harry, just for six and a half weeks."

"That's very precise….and …long," he added, his mood descending rapidly.

"It'll fly by."

She had finished and took up her coat, handbag and carrier.

"Okay, Ruth …well…have a good –"

"Come round tonight at eight, Harry—"

"To yours?"

"Yes. I'll explain then."

And she was away, almost flattening Tariq in the process.

* * *

It was nine.

"Got held up. Sorry," he said as she opened the door, "Is it too late?"

She beckoned him in with a nod of the head and closed the door.

"Drink?" she asked.

"No, thanks."

"Sit down, Harry."

He turned, watching her as she disappeared into the kitchen.

"Ruth, is everything alright? Has this got anything to do with -"

"It's fine," she replied, reappearing with a glass of red wind and a large tumbler of scotch, which she offered up towards him.

"Thanks, but I don't really -"

She thrust it into his hand, "You're going to need it," she insisted, "Now please sit."

He sat, bewildered and worried, in equal measure.

"I went to see the DG because it obviously involved us both."

Harry, glass almost to his lips, made to speak but she ploughed on regardless.

"And why the six and a half weeks? Well, I calculated that that would be a reasonable time. I thought I better start this week before I changed my mind, so that's half a week and then I thought, it would take, say, two weeks to acclimatise and find our feet and then a week to organise everything, nothing big, just something simple and then a couple of weeks holiday, maybe somewhere warm ..I've always fancied Amalfi... and finally a week to settle back. What do you think?"

He gazed at her blankly.

"Ruth, I have no idea what you are talking about."

She sat down heavily, opposite him.

"I was wrong," she stated simply.

"About…?"

"Just... wrong."

"Fethani?" he tried, in confusion.

"No, not Fethani!"

She looked up at him, "Sorry, I didn't meant to snap. It's just I'm not very good at this."

"No," he said, "you're not."

"You really don't know what I'm trying to say, do you?"

Harry shook his head.

She took a large measure of wine and a long deep breath.

"I thought it would take us six weeks -"

"Six and a half weeks," he corrected, not particularly helpfully.

"Yes. Six and a half weeks... to prepare for, have and acclimatise to … a wedding."

"Who's wedding?" he asked.

"Ours, Harry. Our wedding."

He stared at her, hardly daring.

"Ours?"

She nodded nervously, "That's if you still want to?"

And suddenly the sand began to pour away from his buried hope.

"What did you say happens in the first two weeks, Ruth?"

"I thought we could…you know…acclimatise to each other."

"Acclimatise?"

"Get used to each other… to being together…away from the grid."

He was gazing at her, a tumult of emotion beneath the surface. Hope exposed.

"I don't' understand, Ruth. What's changed?"

"I recognised the look," she said tenderly, relaxing a little.

"What look?"

"The look you're giving me right now, Harry. The one there, just slightly hidden under the bewilderment."

He smiled.

"The look that's always been there. The one that's etched on the back of my eyelids wherever I am, and whoever I'm with."

And finally she could acknowledge, without guilt, even to herself, that it was the look she had seen every night, even when she lay beside George.

Harry's eyes were wide and alive.

Since four o'clock that afternoon she had wondered what his exact words would be when she told him.

"So I'm on leave too?" was the one sentence she had failed to consider.

"Err, yes," she managed, a little disappointed.

"For six and a half weeks?"

"Yes."

He drained the whiskey in the glass, stood up and headed for the door.

"Harry –"

"I'll pick you up tomorrow at eight for dinner," he stopped, shrugged on his coat and then leant in close, eyes burning, breath hot against her cheek, "And after that, we can…acclimatise."

As she went to lock the door behind him, it reopened.

"Thank you," he whispered, before he was gone again.


	7. Chapter 7

**I feel like this may well have run out of steam, so this is probably the conclusion.**

* * *

"And could we have a bottle of Bollinger."

The waiter nodded dutifully and turned away.

"You're in a celebratory mood?"

"Why not, Ruth? Let's face it, it's only been four years since we last went to dinner."

She smiled. And he thought how beautiful she looked. He wished he had told her when he picked her up earlier in the taxi.

"So, what have you been up to? Did you manage to cope without the grid?"

He opened his mouth to reply but she knew him far too well.

"You didn't, did you?" she accused, "You went to work."

"I…"

"Harry!"

"Ruth, you had a couple of days to prepare everything: to talk to the DG; to even spring-clean you're far from prinstine desk…."

She tried to defend that particular accusation.

"And how long did I have? Considering I didn't even know I was on leave!?"

She shrugged slightly.

"Exactly, Ruth. I had things to sort out. To handover to Lucas, see the people I needed to see and make the odd …arrangement."

"Did Lucas ask where you were going?"

"He did."

"Did you tell him?"

"I did not."

The waiter returned and poured the champagne. They touched their glasses together and expectantly took their first sip. It was as Ruth placed her glass delicately back onto the table that Harry pushed a small, dark box towards her.

She glanced up at him.

"I know I got it wrong last time," he said quietly.

"I'm not sure graveyard proposals are likely to become too popular," she smiled, "Not to mention, the reason for the said proposal, to be to garner an extra mourner for the funeral."

I know, I know," he said, shamefaced, "Two out of ten … must try harder."

He picked up the box, turning it thoughtfully in his fingers for a moment before looking back at her.

His face was still and serious and sincere.

"I love you, Ruth. I always will. You're the only one who can fix the broken pieces."

He raised the lid and proffered the box.

"Please…marry me?"

Ruth's eyes were not for the box, nor its contents, they were but for him and they cried 'yes', loud enough for even him to hear.

"Eight out of ten, Harry. Definitely tried harder."

And smiling, she finally looked at the box and the stunning ring within. Two platinum bands, interwoven to form the symbol of infinity and at its centre a large solitaire diamond.

"Harry …" she breathed, astounded by it, her fingers pulling it from the box and sliding it onto her finger, where it sat as though it had been cast for her alone.

"It's …beyond beautiful."

"I didn't know the size, so I took an image of your palm print from security and told the jeweller that I'd have him deported if he didn't get it right."

She laughed, "That was one of your 'arrangements', was it?"

"And the odd other," he grinned, sheepishly.

She raised an eyebrow, quizzically, though he remained somewhat reticent.

"Harry ….?"

"I booked a church and some flights, a hotel and a villa."

She stared at him in surprise.

"If you don't fancy any of them we'll change them, Ruth, it's not a problem. I just thought it was less for us to worry about and we could just concentrate on …" he tailed off.

"Acclimatizing…?" she suggested.

He nodded, laughing warmly.

"You have been busy today, haven't you?"

"Do you mind?"

"No, Harry, I don't mind. I don't mind if you've booked Torremelinos or Blackpool, a registry office or a caravan. In the end it doesn't matter."

"It's nice, I think you'll like it."

She twisted the ring on her finger, watching it catch the light.

They were two people who had changed immeasureably since the last time they were seated across a dining table. Two people whose souls were tainted with too much blood, too much blame and too much regret.

They were older, wiser, yet more damaged.

But together the two broken pieces were beggining to be repaired, the one by the other.

And at last they knew it.


End file.
